I’m back from a needed break in this sour economy.  Everywhere I go I ask people about their business.  It is fairly consistent – something from “could be better” to “really down.”

That economic context allows some freedom for hiring companies to incorporate what I call contextual hiring techniques.  These are typically techniques that take longer to measure and allow the hiring company to see the salesperson in action.

Some examples:

Job Shadowing – just as it sounds, the candidate spends time with an existing sales rep to get an understanding of the position.  Peggy McKee at Medical Sales Recruiter has a post on this topic.  A friend of mine recently did this for a sales position that provided him the opportunity to ask many questions that would be difficult to ask in a formal interview.

I am a fan of this approach especially if the job market is slow.  It can be difficult if the market is hot and candidates have many opportunities.  However, this approach is a strong qualifier for the candidate’s interest.

The one caveat here is to pick the right salesperson for the candidate to shadow.  My friend learned many topics about the hiring company from the sales rep.  The topics that the rep offered up were too much of “inside baseball” to be sharing with a good candidate.

Trial Periods – yes, every position is technically a trial for the first 90 days.  What I’m talking about involves is a 30 – 60 day trial for observing a new salesperson.  Again, I’m a fan of this approach in this type of economy.

The main topics that can be ascertained in this time period is the candidate’s fit to your culture, his or her approach to the job and his or her interaction with you the boss.  Unless you have a short sales cycle, you won’t be able to observe them through the entire sales cycle.  You will have to monitor/observe their activity and extrapolate from that data.

It is a short window, but combining pre-hire assessments with a day of job shadowing and a trial period and you will have an in-depth understanding of your newly hired salesperson.

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Short background here is that Delta bought Northwest Airlines and now I am in the process of switching my frequent flyer program to Delta.  Being a free miles junkie, I completed Delta’s online travel profile.  I thought it was simple background info/preferences for me.  At the end of the 15 questions I receive this information:

Speed Racer

Comfort Seeker

Opportunist

Grand Planner

YOU TRAVEL IN THE FAST LANE, WITH MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY.

As one of those rare, special people who gets things done quicker when there’s more to do, you prioritize your time to your advantage. You always find a way to be more efficient, and you never met an obstacle you couldn’t circumnavigate. With such a need to get things done, anything that keeps your runways clear for takeoff is a benefit indeed!

Your mantra is SAVE TIME, BE EFFICIENT, and BE PRODUCTIVE.

Good grief – even Delta is competition in the assessment business!  I appreciate their “Speed Racer” description.  I was expecting something along the lines of “spaz” since it would have been more accurate.

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That is a tough question since I think values are primarily hardwired into each of us.  We assess this trait in sales candidates – call them motivations.  Each person tends to have two of these motivators that drives their behaviors (some people have 3 primary motivators).

We have assessed salespeople who were in slumps, who were unemployed and who were candidates.  These are stressful situations that should impact their values.  When we had the opportunity to assess the same people at a later date (years later), we did not see an appreciable change in their values/motivations.  Granted, this was no scientific study, but rather a consistent observation.

BusinessWeek.com provides this article – Value-Based Motivation – that discusses how values change in a recession.

One thing that makes motivation particularly difficult to manage is that individuals differ significantly in what they value and events can change what they value. What is very rewarding for some individuals, say, a day of golf with the boss or even an all-expenses-paid vacation trip to Hawaii, may not be seen as a reward by others. The same thing goes for praise by the boss and most forms of recognition.

Recessions can have a significant impact on what people value. Not surprisingly, job security, and financial rewards tend to become more important in periods of recession. It is particularly important that organizations skillfully manage these two drivers of employee motivation during recessions. How they manage them needs to be fine-tuned to the business strategy and how a company is affected by the recession.

Interesting point in that recessions have a global impression – the recession is outside of my control so my motivations are influenced towards monetary and security rewards.  That seems like a logical assumption…perhaps a macro-level influence like a global recession can sway motivations.

As a manager, it is important to know what motivates your salespeople and what rewards them on an individual basis.  This point is valid no matter what the economy is or isn’t doing.  These two factors provide the beginning of a roadmap to gaining the most production out of your sales team.

If you haven’t discovered these motivators in your current team, may I suggest a test assessment?

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From Inc.com’s article on how to screen sales candidates:

It cost $400 a candidate, and the recruits took the tests online. Dolan and Kinaxis’s star salesperson took the test, too, and Opus analyzed their test scores and created a personality benchmark. Afterward, Opus discussed the results with each of the candidates to see if any of them disagreed with the assessments. None did. “They’re spooky accurate,” Dolan says.

We use spooky accurate assessments for all of our sales candidates.  Assessing sales candidates is one of the best ways to cut through the veneer and see what they are truly made of.  This article places a priority on personality assessments which is fine but not ideal.  However, a personality assessment is still better than no assessment.

We categorize personality as Selling Style and it is analogous to fashion style.  It is the means by which the salesperson prefers to communicate, but it shouldn’t be a knockout factor when hiring.  Companies who hire based on personality tend to be the ones who believe that all successful salespeople are extroverts.  Not true and we have years of assessments to prove it.

Using the fashion analogy, there are a few faux pas that would lead you to seriously question a candidate (yes, I have sat through those interviews too).  The personality style is similar – there are some that are probably a complete mismatch to the position’s needs.  Those candidates should still be pursued in the interview process with questions to reveal more of their style.

The better assessment for successful sales hiring is to measure their motivations, natural aptitudes and existing skills.  These factors are far more predictive of success in a sales position than personality.

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Selling Power’s Hiring One of the Team focuses on finding superstar salespeople that will fit into your existing team.  Clearly that is the goal for all sales hiring and this article supplies some sound advice.  Other parts of it I will leave to your judgment.

Here is a quote I enjoyed (emphasis mine):

“Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.“– Dee Hock, founder of VISA Credit Card Corporation.

That is spot on, especially the experience piece.  If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that we battle experience-based hiring.  A sales candidate with a well-crafted resume and industry experience often blinds the hiring manager.  The hiring manager becomes enamored with the experience and does not focus on the fit, ability or potential of the candidate.

“A true team player has to be able to set aside his or her ego and be able to do things for the benefit of the team,” says Gregory. “Use behavior profiles to assess this and then during the interview process ask questions such as, ‘Give me an example of when you felt you were not a team player. What did you do once you realized it?’ Look for sincerity in their answers. Did they admit they were wrong? Did they apologize?”

I like the approach and agree with the assessment part (not surprising, is it?), but behavior profiles alone are not as effective as a full assessment.  The behavioral assessment needs to be part of a motivational, aptitudes and skills assessment.  Simply hiring extroverts will not lead to a cohesive team.  A noisy team yes, cohesive, not necessarily.

Lastly, I wouldn’t recommend this:

Other members of the team (it doesn’t have to be everyone) should also interview the candidate. Gregory suggests that each of them ask the candidate the same question to see how the candidate responds. Meet with everyone to see if the person’s answers correlate. Then find out if the candidate was enthusiastic through all of the interviews or did he or she get irritated being asked the exact same question?

I don’t see that serving any purpose.  If you want to see how irritated they become, interrupt them during the interview.  Pressure them, confront them mildly, ask “why” questions – this approach will reveal more to you than a repeated question that will probably generate a canned response.

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Isn’t there an old sports axiom that states games are won or lost before you ever take the field?  Well, at least some form of that saying.  JustSell.com lists a handful of self-defeating thoughts from the sales world (email newsletter – sorry, no link).

Here they are:

• Defeatist (accepting, expecting, or being resigned to defeat)
• Cynical (contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives)
• Vindictive (seeking revenge)
• Blame/ Fault (who cares? what are we going to do now?)
• Wishful (do what you can to influence the deal and keep moving)
• Self-pity (get over yourself… complain less… especially to yourself)
• Worrisome (it won’t help, costs time, and can drag you down)
• Jealous (want it? earn it)
• Pre-argumentative (the imaginary argument you have to prepare yourself for the argument that may never happen)
• Post-argumentative (the imaginary argument you have where you’re quicker than you were in the actual argument)
• Procrastinatory (if you’re going to procrastinate, you might as well do something fun instead of thinking about how bad it is that you’re procrastinating… dummy)

I find that fourth one (blame/fault) to be especially common in sales…and quite detrimental.

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This economy is tough for everyone but especially for salespeople.  Money is tight, companies are delaying decisions and jobs are on the line.  Yet, through it all sales must continue…and they do.

One, well, macabre thought through this time is that this economy is a tool that separates the order takers from the closers.  If you think about it, the salespeople who have rested on a strong territory, one large customer or golden leads are now having to face a prospecting situation.  For some this is a nightmare of slasher movie proportions.

I have seen a company’s perception of a “strong” salesperson change dramatically during similar economic times.  This downturn is no exception.  You may find that some of your strongest, most-skilled salespeople are not necessarily the ones at the very top of your revenue spreadsheet.

This is a good time to take an inventory of your current team and assess their strengths and weaknesses.  I would even go so far as to suggest assessments, but only if delivered in the right manner.  In this economy, assessments to salespeople spell trouble in their world.  If used correctly, they can provide the sales manager with a path for getting the most out of his or her team.

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One of the reasons we are so adamant about assessing sales candidates is to know what motivates and rewards the person.  Once identified, these factors can be explored during a face-to-face interview.  There is one reward that requires an in-depth discussion with any sales candidate who possesses it – Status & Recognition.

This salesperson is rewarded by prestige, social acknowledgement and tangible trophies.  Let me be clear – this is a strong reward structure for a salesperson.  However, when it is over-amplified, it becomes a detriment.

I have a friend in sales who has this issue.  He is incredibly knowledgeable about his complex product line.  He speaks about it on an engineering level even though he is not an engineer.  Unfortunately, his sales have plummeted over the past 3 months.

The issue is this – he craves the prospect’s recognition of his knowledge more than closing the deal.  For him it is getting his personal needs met in the marketplace.  This approach is fatal in sales.

He recently told me a story of how one of his customers once told him he could be a consultant in this industry.  You should have seen how he lit up as he recalled that discussion.  Unfortunately, that customer unexpectedly dropped from the revenue report and this salesperson has not done the sales work necessary to foresee it.

If you have been in sales for any length of time, you realize that the salespeople who are successful do not go into the marketplace to get their emotional needs met.  They are playing a role – salesperson.  It’s not personal.  It’s not a reflection on them.  It is a job that requires certain behaviors to be successful.  They are going to face rejection every day so they better be able to emotionally detach from the role.  It is not a reflection on who they are as a person.  This is critical when hiring salespeople.

The conventional wisdom is that hiring industry experts is the best approach for salespeople.  It isn’t.  You probably have plenty of expertise in your company today.  If not, go hire engineers.  When hiring a salesperson, the better course of action is to hire one who can sell.  Sales ability is not synonymous with industry experience.  Assess your candidates, know what rewards them and pursue questions that reveal their sales ability.

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I was out all yesterday helping the medical clinic where my wife works move into a new facility.  I am a wannebe geek so I moved their small computer network for them and installed a new computer for the owner.  The interesting item I observed was the work ethic of the people involved.

I like to say that some times you just don’t need an assessment.  I think moving may be one of those times.  To be blunt, moving blows no matter how you look at it.  It is disruptive, tiring, laborious and messy.

However, one thing you can clearly observe is the work ethic of a person.  At one end of the spectrum, I observed people taking calls, scheduling appointments and selling products while they used moving boxes as their desk.  At the other end, some people didn’t even show up.  Needless to say, I was shocked.

No matter what the talent level of the employee, effort is the greater assessment.

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As you have probably ascertained, we are strong proponents of hiring for ability/potential that matches your sales as opposed to tenured experience in your industry.  Naturally, this article – The Myth of Experience – from Managesmarter.com is right up our alley.

Please allow me to reference an analogy from later in the article:

Don’t fall into the myth of relying upon experience. Instead look for potential. That’s why there is always an image of flowers on a package of seeds. We don’t really care what the seeds look like. We want to know what they will become.

I like that characterization even though I am not one to use “potential”…I prefer abilities and potential. 

The author jumps right into it with a paragraph we could have written:

The truth is, we all have a tendency to think of experience in a way that is entirely too limiting. What we should be looking for is not direct experience but transferable skills. It is not whether someone has sold the same product or service before, but what have they carried with them:

• Are they able to initiate relationships easily?
• Can they get a client to open up?
• Do they know how to identify and solve problems?

These are some of the transferable skills that can take an individual successfully from one position to another—and even from one career to another.

Transferable skills are the key to hiring salespeople.  The best way to spot these skills is to profile your sale first, then find salespeople with skills that match up well to your sale.

And finally, a suggestion that we support:

An in-depth personality profile can provide the insights you need into whether an applicant has the potential you are looking for. Is it their empathy? Their persuasiveness? Their perseverance? Their ability to connect with people in a very real way? The capacity to quickly analyze problems and arrive at solutions?
Discover that. Then look for applicants who have those same qualities. That’s the potential you’re looking for.

In sales, it is important to go into skills, motivations and abilities since personality is primarily a style issue.  Nonetheless, this is an excellent article and one I strongly recommend you read.

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